"Perhaps I would. I don't know. There is the weak point in my whole scheme. I evade it by failing to sacrifice you, but I support my theory by saying there is no occasion to do so."
"I don't like your principles," Philip rejoined, "though I admit that my own fail me more often than not."
"Exactly. We humans do fail, and the conclusion to which it brings me is, why hold principles that you find unworkable? I prefer a standard to which I can at least be true, in the main, and avoid self-condemnation, pricks of conscience, and other little inconveniences."
"Such as a sense of duty?" interrupted Claire.
"Yes, that too, if you mean a sense of being bound to one because of something he has done in the past. For instance, I am obliged to Philip for his food, his house, my life, and this cigarette, but I scarcely feel that that would imply that I must sacrifice my greatest desire in life as payment if necessary. Of course, it isn't necessary, but if it were, I should refuse."
"I think you would not," asserted Philip.
"I know I would. I rather believe you would also, though it might be that you would not."
"I would sacrifice anything to pay a debt of gratitude." Philip spoke warmly.
"You would--perhaps--but in so doing would you not feel that gratitude was the thing of supreme worth to yourself?"
"Not necessarily. I might even suffer all my life for having done so."
"Impossible. You would either redeem your sense of life's value by a new belief, or you would die."
"Then you think a man can do as he pleases and maintain his self-respect, his personal integrity?"
"He will find some way to make himself feel worth while, or he will cease to be."
"You think that a criminal, or perhaps better, a person abandoned to vice, feels justified?"
"Yes. He creates a belief by which his abandonment is not destructive to himself, or he is converted, which is simply a convulsion of nature for the same end, to preserve his life and make it seem valuable to him."
"Could you, for instance, murder a man, and do it believing that afterward you would somehow make it seem right, or at least so necessary that you would feel as self-respecting and sin-free as before?" Philip was speaking earnestly.
"I should not do so unless I were forced to it, but if I were, I know that I would somehow reconstruct my mental life so that I would still feel existence worth the price."